THE OLD OAK TREE

Frank is an elderly man and the love of his life is dying///

Frank was troubled.

He stood by Mabel’s bedside and shook his head. She looked so pale, nothing like the vivacious young women she’d been, what, how long was it? More than half a century ago, and even longer.

He sighed and her eyes fluttered open. Pale, they were, like the rest of her.

“Frank,” she whispered, so quietly that he could barely hear her, but he did. “Yes darling?” he asked.

“You will remember, won’t you?”

“Of course. How could I forget?” he asked.

And he wouldn’t forget that last request she’d made of him. Bit by bit over several days it had come out.

Firstly, several days ago, how she couldn’t face the idea of sharing a wooden box with worms. Or other creatures, slimy wriggling things with razor teeth that spend eternity in the bowels of the Earth, chewing away at anything that chanced to come their way, shards of old timber, the roots of dead trees, human flesh...

Mabel had hated the idea of being food for such monstrosities.

“Don’t put me in a coffin and bury me,” she had begged in her best imploring whisper.

“You’ll be all right, gal,” he had replied, pretending to be cheery. But cheery was one thing that no longer came easily.

There had been years, happy years, when they had both laughed at everything, when they had planned their family, and what a fine family it had been, two girls and a boy. The kids had grown up and flown the nest long ago, but he still remembered them cheerfully, the way they’d laughed and teased each other and just been the best of friends. And he and Mabel had laughed with them. She’d been a bit risqué sometimes, scaring them with tales of dark places and darker creatures, making the girls squeal at some of the ideas she’d brought forth.

Now she lay here and he knew that her imaginary creations had gained a new life as her flesh slowly succumbed to an inevitable ending.

“I know that I’m dying, Frank,” she had whispered more than once. “I know I’m at the end and I’m sorry that it’s like this…”

He was, too. She’d been a wonderful mother to the kids, had nurtured their minds as well as their bodies. The pies she’d baked! The goulashes and stews she’d created! And them at birthdays and Christmases, the surprises she’d ladled onto dishes, surprises that had about them the taste of far away places and magical things.

He’d done his best too, of course, but that wasn’t going to win any competitions when measured against hers!

Only yesterday she’d brought forth another fear, one that seemed to tear at her heart.

“Don’t burn me,” she had begged, whispering painfully, “don’t let hot flames lick against my flesh and scorch it. For I have ever been frightened of fire. You know what it’s like, all hot and burning, tongues of fire that brush against you and consume the flesh until there’s nothing left but dust and ashes…”

“I won’t, my darling,” he had said, “but you’re not leaving me much in the way of options…”

Now she was so close to the end and he knew it. He could tell, but still her lovely eyes opened again…

“The tree,” she had whispered, so close to being silent he would never have grasped a syllable had it not been for the way he had become accustomed to her speech.

“The tree?” he had questioned her.

“Down by… the river… where the kids used to play… and collect their acorns,” she breathed, less than a whisper, very much like death.

“I will, darling,” he had whispered.

Then for a fleeting moment there was that wonderful smile of hers, the one he had loved down so many years, and she was gone. A whole symphony of lights had gone out and his life felt so suddenly useless and empty like it had never felt before. It was as if her own death had taken with it some of his own life.

He had loved her. Always. Since that time when they’d met, going home from school, he from the boys’ school and she from the girls’ next door.

He had marvelled at the way she had looked, her white shirt or blouse or whatever she called it covered in the autographs of her friends, because she had left school and was moving on into the world, and with her the signatures of her many friends. The boys hadn’t done anything of the kind so his own shirt was unsullied by schoolboy scribble, even though he had been walking home from his school for the last time as well. It had been the start of the school summer holiday, but no long six week bonanza of freedom for himself now that he had left and was entering the world of work.

“Do you want to sign my blouse?” she had asked, cheekily, because in all truth he didn’t treally know her at all.

“Why, are we friends?” he had asked dubiously, and she had thrown her head back and laughed.

“Of course not!” she had spluttered, “we’re lovers!”

And that had been the way it had been, right from that very first afternoon when he had scribbled as neatly as he could “Frank Rogers” on her well-signed white shirt.

“What do you mean, we’re lovers?” he had asked her.

“Wait and see,” was her reply, “it’s Saturday tomorrow and I’ve got a tent! Do you fancy a night under the stars, just you and me?”

“Where?” he asked.

“By the stream that runs past the bottom of your garden. You see, I know where you live! And I’ll bring the F.R’s in case we need them!”

“F.R’s” he had asked.

“French letters!” she had laughed, “just in case!”

And now a lifetime later a tear, hot and filled with grief, rolled down his cheek.

“Yes,” he sighed at her stillness, “the hollow tree by the stream…”

He didn’t tell anyone that Mabel was dead. He couldn’t bear the thought that something this dreadful had happened. She should be alive for ever! Or at least, until after he’d departed this life himself. Grief was something he knew he wouldn’t be able to easily handle.

It wasn’t easy, taking her out of the house. She had been frail for ages, and growing smaller as her flesh had seemed to melt off her. She couldn’t eat, she had decided, and eating became a thing of the past even though he did his damnedest to tempt her with all the things he knew she liked. And, bless her, she had tried, but even the smoked salmon made her sick.

“You’ll get better soon enough,” he had told her, but in his deepest heart he had known that was one thing that wasn’t going to happen.

It was dark and likely to rain as he struggled with her in a wheelbarrow down the garden path to the gate at the bottom, the gate that led onto the countryside and a broad stream that trickled along almost musically.

They had made love for the first time in the tent that she had directed him to pitch near the waters of that same stream. She had opened his mind to possibilities that, with the social life of a lad in a boy’s school, had been a secret as far as his past was concerned.

Then they had been together, always the two of them, never a threesome or more, until they married, and then that same stream had played its part. The old tent had also played its part again, an unusual venue for a honeymoon, but that was what she had wanted.

He pushed the wheel barrow with its precious passenger through the gate, and up to the old tree, thankfully not too far along, where he had played as a boy. It had always been old, had that tree, and seventy odd years ago he had played in it as a boy, with Michael who had lived next door until he died young, in his teens. Frank had all but forgotten Michael, which he now realised was a shame, because he was part of Frank’s own story, just like Mabel had been.

The old oak tree was just the same. The hollow where he had sheltered from wind and rain with Michael in the colder months, he remembered it with an unbelievable sharpness. They had both squeezed into that hollow, two boys with a whole world to play in restricted to the tight fit of a hollow tree.

And as if to further remind him it started to rain when he got there.

“I hope this will do, my love,” he whispered, then he fought to move the love of his life from the wheelbarrow into the hiding hole when he and Michael had been Robin Hood and Little John and fired their arrows into the world.

And as if her whole life had crafted her for this resting place, when she slumped it looked as if at last Maid Marion had finally found her home!

He stood there in the rain for ages, oblivious of being wet. Then he turned, cast a tearful last goodbye at the reclining love of his life, and trudged off with his wheelbarrow. When he finally arrived back home he was wet though, but that didn’t matter. Mabel was at rest in the safety of a well loved tree, and rain as hard as it might she would stay sheltered and dry.

Thunder and lightning rolled round the town. A jagged flash of lightning reached down and found Mabel’s tree, scorched its dry timbers and spread in electric sparks from branch to branch, encouraged by the winds.

Next morning there were signs everywhere that there had been a storm during the night. Especially near the stream, where the remnants of an old tree still smouldered, and had anyone come along to see what was what Mabel’s old eyes might have stared back at them, but those eyes were little more than ashes, and had been shut forever.

When Frank came along, dreading to see what had become of his love’s wooden tomb, there was hardly a clue that she had ever rested there. A single bone, frail like she had been and scorched by fire, lay there until a happy dog picked it up and ran off with it into the day, chased by its owner, a young man with his dog.

“Mabel!” he called, “you naughty girl! Come here at once, and what is that you’ve got in your mouth? A dirty old bone? Put it down at once!”

© Peter Rogerson 15.03.23

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Reviews

[AYVID N]

Life always ends so sadly. However, fruitful or brilliant or rewarding it may have been. The end is inevitably a depressing one. Mabel lived a full life as you so beautifully described here yet it was so difficult for Frank to let her go. The anxiety, the dread and ultimately the resignation was all felt keenly as I read the story. The coincidence at the conclusion just made the story more delightful.

[Peter Rogerson]

I'm glad you appreciated the last little sentence. I had no ifdea it was going to be there utnil I actually wrote it!.